THE AGE OF AIDS
I remember sitting in my doctors office — this was around 1984 and it was two or even three years before there were tests to see if one had been exposed to the AIDS virus and, of course, there was absolutely no treatment available since AZT had yet to be approved by the FDA for use in AIDS patients — and I asked my doctor Joe Sonnabend, who had a large gay practice {and who went on to found AMFAR}, what the deal was with the disease.
And by “deal” I meant what kind of survival rate could we expect if we came down with it and how were people’s symptoms manifesting and how were they dying.
This is what Joe told me:
“Some people are getting really weird, rare cancers. Some people are getting covered from head to toe with KS lesions which is yet another weird form of cancer that we never really saw a lot of before this. Some people are getting PCP. Some people are going blind. Some people are going insane from CMV, which most adults have been exposed to and which is generally harmless — unless you have AIDS and then it can shred your mind like tissue paper. Some people are having their internal organs simply fail on them. Some people have no immediate symptoms and yet are dead within a month of the onset of their first symptom which may seem like nothing more than a low grade flu. Some people get all of the symptoms that I just described all at the same time and die very quickly and still other people recover, relapse, recover and relapse for months and months first with one symptom and then with another.
But everyone who comes down with it right now and who dies is dying in absolute agony.
And pretty much everyone is dying.”
See, the reason I was at Joe’s office that day was because I had just recovered from a Shingles attack — a disease that most certainly is NOT normally found in 24 year olds like me and that Joe told me was a sign of a compromised immune system and a possible indicator of seroconversion and exposure to HIV — although there was no way to tell of course since a reliable HIV test was still more than 2 years off and they still weren’t even sure what actual seroconversions looked like, if they looked like anything at all.
It was then that I realized that given what he had just told me — combined with the fact that everyone I knew was dropping like fucking flies — I probably had six months or maybe a year to live and that there was definitely not going to be anything pretty about the end when it came.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:08 am
This isn’t a pleasant trip down memory lane. In 1986 I rushed a guy to the ER whose lungs were filling with fluid. This was the Kentucky University Medical Center. But the ER staff kept putting people who came in after him for things like vaccinations or rashes ahead of him. When I’d inquire they’d just look at him sitting there and tell me it wouldn’t be much longer. Then I realized “much longer” was when the next shift started! The bastards didn’t want to touch him if they could foist him off on the next crew. I went to the administration office and filed a complaint. By the time I got back to the ER he had been seen and was on his way to a room. His doctor joined the complaint after checking the records because they let us sit there over an hour before calling him. Jim survived and lived through all the experimental treatments for another 17 years. Apparently it worked for you too. Bad times but good results for some.
March 11th, 2010 at 11:28 am
Scott. Thanks so much for posting these remembrances/battleground journalism pieces on the early days of the AIDS plague. I’m currently in rehearsal for Love! Valour! Compassion! in South Carolina of all places, and I’ve been sharing your pieces with other members of the cast (especially the younger ones) to illustrate the contemporary raw emotions of fear, anger, despair and guilt that provides the social/cultural background of the piece.
Thanks again (and for all the hot porn of course)
March 11th, 2010 at 12:24 pm
Man this really takes me back. In 1984 I would have only been 14 but I was very aware of what was happening in the world outside of my protected little farm community in the far suburbs of Cleveland/Akron. I of course knew I was a gay man but dared not tell and the things people were saying about gays and AIDS at the time were just horrible. I was very afraid of what my life was going to be, just as I am sure you walked out of your doctor’s office very afraid for your future as well.
March 11th, 2010 at 3:41 pm
yikes, scott.
you must have been, what, in your mid-twenties?
fucking scary for anyone–
but that’s such a young age to contemplate dying,
and in that unimaginable way
though i guess we could very well imagine it:
all we had to do
was look around at our friends. . .
i remember the fear
and the sweat running down from my pits
as i waited in the doctor’s office for results–
once the “test” was made available.
these posts of yours
are strange and almost other-worldly–
as if they’ve been transported
from another time and place–
and these comments are so moving.
but why now?
has something happened?
March 11th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
I just want to say, I’m very proud and honored that you’re sharing this, Scott. It’s very important that survivors like you share and transmit this history to the youngins such as myself.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
You’d think this would make you go the extra mile to keep other people from seroconverting. And yet to read your blog, it sounds like your place is bareback central.
March 11th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
What Ted? By not showing bareback movies?!?!?
Please Ted, maybe its that I understand something that you clearly don’t — that what people see on a blog {or tee vee or the movies or real life} doesn’t necessarily make them go out and do those things.
When was the last time that you watched a Quentin Tarantino move and then, after watching it, you went out with a samurai sword looking to kill O-Ren Ishii.
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Its people like you Ted, who imply that everyone else is too stupid to be able to decide for themselves what may be bad for them and therefore put it off on others to police their behavior for them, who are the ultimate in authoritarians. Because not only do you feel that nobody {other than you of course} is capable of making informed decisions for themselves but you then extend your authoritarian streak by making it the fault of others for the stupidity of people for whom they are not responsible.
Tell ya what Ted, when you’ve actually done something that you can point to that goes “the extra mile” yourself to keep other people from seroconverting why don’t you come back and tell us all about it. Until then you can shut yer yap. Because I’m betting that you’ve done a whole lot of nothing except sit in the dark and read blogs like this rather than going “the extra mile” that you seem to think is my responsibility.
Oh, and of course I bet you beat off a lot while reading blogs like this, because I’m also willing to bet that there isn’t a bareback video on this site that you haven’t watched at least a couple of times.
Go ahead Ted, admit it. You know you’ve watched them and enjoyed them but deep down you don’t think anyone else should be able to enjoy them. Do you Ted?
You don’t know how fucking typical you are Ted. Its just too bad there aren’t fewer of you.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
FYI: you are getting coverage over on The Sword for running this series on your blog!
March 11th, 2010 at 10:17 pm
Hummmm Ted aside…1985 Columbus, Ohio STD clinic: I am 26 working for minimum, with no health insurance. Not only the G down my throat and up the butt, but Merry Christmas I had a touch of the AIDS. AZT was not even on the horizon. I went to work and came home to bed every day for 9 months expecting the memo. Finally got wise and decided if wasn’t going to die in Ohio I certainly didn’t to live there either.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:31 pm
Scott, thanks for posting this bit of history. The 80’s and early 90’s saw many of my friends pass away and I developed funeral burnout. I quit attending services. It wasn’t until the Names Project quilt (actually a portion of it) was displayed locally that the enormity of it came back to me.
You already did a great bitch slap to Ted, so I’ll not bother with my rebuke.
March 11th, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Hi Scott,
Thanks for posting this. My boyfriend, who I love more than anything, tested HIV+ when he was 19 (5 years ago). It’s part of our relationship but I have never been able to comprehend how it must have felt to get that test back. As someone who’s HIV-, I don’t think I can ever understand the fear he, and everyone else experiences when diagnosed. Your posts do an amazing job of giving a glimpse in to what must have been a complete nightmare for thousands of people in the 80’s. I’m honored to be a faithful reader of this blog.
March 12th, 2010 at 12:14 am
When was the last time that you watched a Quentin Tarantino move and then, after watching it, you went out with a samurai sword looking to kill O-Ren Ishii.
Actually just yesterday… but not O-Ren I had the smirking face of Karl Rove in mind. I have to stop reading those book reviews.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:13 am
this brings back alot of fresh memories that younger people just dont have. sick people laying in their own waste bc health professionals literally wouldnt touch them, leaving them for their family members to clean up. I remember a poll where 25% of health care providers said it was ethical to not treat people with AIDS. Its easy now to see this as a ‘liveable’ problem now, but I remember how ugly people where back then – and it will probably happen again if HIV makes another giant mutation, or SARS or H1N1 does something crazy. There is a slim line between order and chaos and I saw it crossed in the 80’s and it wasnt pretty.
March 12th, 2010 at 7:21 am
Your posts and comments can run the gamut from über-A to ultra-Z and back again. I’ve been on the receiving end of what you referred to a couple of posts back as your “lash”, and we will have to agree to disagree on whether I deserved it, or not. (It’s your blog.) Naturally, the people you surround YOURself with are very bright, but most people are in point of fact very, VERY stupid, so the “Kill Bill” analogy doesn’t float. I imagine “Ted’s” only point was ['obvious' alert] anyone’s contributing to the atmosphere of the notion that condom use where ass fucking is concerned is not that big a deal. I don’t think he’s being especially nazi about barebacking. I personally used to love having semen left behind as a little tribute, but that, of course, has been a very bad idea since long about 1980.
March 12th, 2010 at 8:43 am
anyone’s contributing to the atmosphere of the notion that condom use where ass fucking is concerned is not that big a deal.
Nope John, it’s right there in writing. We can all read it does not say one thing about contributing anything. Ted accused Scott of single-handedly promoting seroconversion. Like showing pictures of barebacking is all to blame for HIV and not people making fucking stupid choices concerning sex.
It’s a question of personal responsibility and I am so tired of listening to people crying that it is everyone’s fault but their own. So yes let me just say in this case I blame the self proclaimed “victims” here. Getting HIV was my own god damned fault and I don’t care how early it was. I still MADE MY OWN poor choice.
I think there is a time and a place for public fucking service announcements by “actual experts” to give people “valid information” about HIV risk reduction. Not flippant self righteous opinions. The freaks running around the internet playing god’s little censorship dictators over pictures or videos THEY deem risky behavior are seriously fucked up.
The people who do it are pretty much one and all assholes who can not be bothered to get off their fat asses and go physically contribute anything worth while actions like getting involved in the real world with their local community.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:14 am
and the funny part of ted’s little rant is that he wants scott to “go the extra mile” but completely ignores the fact that that’s what these posts are: the extra mile. people like ted are sad because they always think its everyone elses responsibility to behave the way the ted’s of the world want them to behave but the ted’s of the world never go “the extra mile” themselves and almost never behave themselves the way they demand others to.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:26 am
So let me see if I’ve got the point that John is making here; the world is full of stupid people and therefore its the responsibility of smart people like Scott to not show pictures or movies of potentially dangerous activities that might cause all those stupid people to go out and do those dangerous things themselves.
Is that about right John?
Because I’ve got to tell you, if that’s what you believe then you’ve got a really twisted world view.
March 12th, 2010 at 9:48 am
What gets me s how fucking creepy is it for someone like John and Ted to publicly admit they sit there staring at every freaking dick in every picture monitoring condom use?
I mean that’s got to be the saddest up excuse for a purpose in life I have ever heard.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:10 am
Teddypig, hotlanta dave, and Ric:
My opinion (I’m not alone) is that images of barebacking subliminally promote the atmosphere that it’s okay. Do I want to be the gatekeeper? No, but that doesn’t mean images of barebacking are not legitimately controversial.
If your view from the ivory tower tells you that the people who make the easy decision to bareback – in spite of the evidence – don’t matter, that’s your right.
I still don’t know if “Ted” was accusing Scott of singlehandedly trying to cause a new AIDS holocaust, or not. Is that really the issue? Scott’s new posts illuminating the early days of AIDS, and the nightmare that they were, don’t seem to indicate that this is what he’s up to, do they.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:31 am
“… admit they sit there staring at every freaking dick in every picture monitoring condom use? I mean that’s got to be the saddest up excuse for a purpose in life I have ever heard.”
Teddypig! You’re just a dirty bird, and if I ever find your wrecked car in a snowbank, I’ll take you home, strap you to a bed and break your ankles with a sledge hammer!
March 12th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
How is this John… Your “belief” or “opinion” or “whatever self righteous drivel you want to call it” has absolutely no basis in fact, no study to support it and no purpose but to condemn some other person’s choices and is more than likely all about your fucked up twisted self hatred you want to project onto others.
Does that ring a bell? I have got to believe someone has confronted that lame excuse you call thinking before now.
March 12th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Seriously Teddy, don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Sorry Scott, people doing Church Lady imitations and not getting the joke drive me nuts.
March 12th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
No problem Teddy. Your doing it save me from being forced to say exactly what you’re saying.
March 13th, 2010 at 5:19 am
So, speaking of not getting the joke, you didn’t like the “Misery” riff?
I’ll take a ‘lashing’ from Scott, but something purporting to be a retort from someone who over at his own website is getting seriously moist over an Apple iPad? I don’t think so.
March 13th, 2010 at 9:49 am
I don’t think
I figured that out.
March 13th, 2010 at 10:14 am
Could this have BEEN any more fun? Maybe with a roped-off pit full of mud. Maybe.